A Blue Day

I wish I could say it was all blue skies, it has been intermittent blue skies and showers.

My blue day is Blueberries I have harvested about 3lb of them so far and is there is still more to come, as they have been harvested I have been freezing them, I thought about doing something a bit different with them this time.

after a bit of search on the internet I came across a easy kid friendly Blueberry Cordial recipe,

perfect with grandchildren coming for the week end, Martin is bringing them back with him.

The recipe is 3 cups of blueberries, 4 cups of boiling water, 4 cups of sugar, 4tsp of citric acid or 4 tablespoons of lemon juice.

 throw it all into a saucepan and heat it up stirring to dissolve the sugar, once dissolved mash the blueberries with a potato masher to release those juices, then leave to cool overnight to bring out as much flavour.

Next day sterilise a couple of bottles, strain the juice and fill your bottles

 dilute 1 part juice to 4-5 parts water its lovely with a couple of crushed chocolate mint leaves.

Because this hasn't been processed it should be kept in the fridge and it will keep for 6 months the citric acid/lemon juice helps as a preservative.

you could also freeze in ice cube trays then pop into bags,  couple of the cubes would be about 1 part just add the water.

 It is also suppose to be lovely made up with boiling water as a warming winter drink.

Now don't throw away the mush from straining

 You could add this to some other fruit and make a crumble or serve it with ice cream, pop it in the freezer until you need it.

 My mush I have spread on a tray and its being dehydrated, I will then break it all up and use it dried added to granola.

I made up some of the cordial and set some ice lollies

I switch over to a lolly mould I could remove the lollies from when made, I keep them in a tub in the freezer, these are some lemon lollies I made when I made some lemonade, the other moulds I found annoying as you had to wait until the lollies were eaten before you could make any more. This way I can have lots of flavours made up.

Apple sauce left over from yesterdays sauce making 

 It was spread on to dehydrator trays

 this is it a dehydrated fruit leather

rolled up

And cut into snack size pieces, These have been popped into an air tight tub for the kids this week end, the others have been vacuum packed for future use.

 

Just waiting for my visitors to arrive and need to get some bread on, Bovey Belle from blogland popped in this morning for a rag rugging lesson bringing with her a lovely strawberry sponge whats left the kids and Martin will enjoy, also some collected seeds for me to grow on next year.  We chatted the morning away browsed books and a little crafting, BB also visited all the livestock and our new additions were photographed.

Everyone I have met through blogging have been really lovely people :-)